Father of the Bride Jitters

Posted Jul 09, 2022 by Sidney C. Roberts, MD, FACR

At a time when congressional hearings and Supreme Court rulings are all anyone can talk about – much less the latest COVID-19 surge – I can’t focus on anything but my eldest daughter’s upcoming wedding. Two weeks from today, my wife and I will celebrate her marriage to a wonderful man – one who loves her and compliments her beautifully.

In preparation for the big event, I did some important and sophisticated research. I watched the classic 1991 Father of the Bride with Steve Martin. The 1991 movie was based on a 1950 film version starring Elizabeth Taylor. It has been remade yet again in 2022. One could surmise father of the bride stories are enduring, funny, and touching because of the special relationship dads and daughters have. Nah, we just like to watch dads suffer.

Steve Martin’s character, George Banks – the father of the bride – sums up the problem with weddings in the movie’s opening monologue: “I used to think a wedding was a simple affair. Boy and girl meet, they fall in love, he buys a ring, she buys a dress, they say I do. I was wrong. That's getting married. A wedding is an entirely different proposition.”[1]

My wife and I fall into the “got married” category. I’ve written about it before.[2] We married in 1985 at age 24, both out of college and in our respective graduate programs. We were members of First Baptist Church in Midland, Texas, and never thought to get married any place else. It was an afternoon wedding, and our reception was in the church’s Fellowship Hall with mints, punch and cookies, and cake.

Nuptials today are not punch-and-cookies affairs. A 1985 Fortune magazine article lamented the fact that the average cost of a wedding had “soared beyond $6,000, according to Bride’s magazine.”[3] That same magazine now uses the word “skyrocketing” to describe wedding costs in 2022, as vendors pass inflation costs on to customers.[4] Couples – ahem, the father of the bride – can expect an average wedding to cost nearly $30,000.[5]

We’ve been saving for this wedding for years. I am married to a saver and a budgeter. But wedding budgets are a moving target. Much of the comic relief in the 1991 Father of the Bride movie starts about 40 minutes in, when Martin Short appears as the wedding coordinator, Franck, a hilariously over-the-top parody of a foreign, effeminate designer. Once Franck gets involved, George Banks can just kiss his budget goodbye:[6]

George Banks: Swans? …

His daughter, Annie: Yes, Franck thought it'd be nice to have swans waddling around the tulip border. …

George Banks: We don't have a tulip border. …

The Florist: [handing him a bill] You will.

One reason weddings are more expensive today is that couples haven’t been getting married in houses of worship for years.[7] Outdoor and venue-based weddings are the norm[8] and destination weddings are not uncommon (about 25% of weddings).[9] My daughter, for example, is getting married in the mountains in Utah.

Planning any wedding, much less a destination wedding, is like buying a car – there are always higher levels of trim and extras you seemingly can’t live without. VIN etching and rust proofing, anyone? All joking aside, coordinating vendors long distance and avoiding all the potential upgrades a wedding can entail is difficult. My daughter has been exceptional to work with in this regard. And I am grateful we locked in many contracts well before the more recent inflation pressures hit.

Still, most weddings – surprise! – go over budget. Zola, one internet-based wedding company, summed up the difficulty of budgeting for and predicting wedding costs well:

“And even when couples have a wedding budget in mind, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the amount they ultimately pay for their wedding will align with that budget. A whopping 70 percent of couples are spending more on their 2022 weddings than originally planned. And, while some of the reasons for going over-budget are more evergreen (for example, underestimating how much they’ll need to spend), others are more 2022-specific—like supply chain issues driving up the cost of wedding-related items.”[10]

I did tell my daughter once – jokingly – that her biological clock may not be ticking, but mine is. I am not alone. According to US Census data, the median age of marriage for men and women was 30.4 and 28.6 in 2021, compared to 25.5 and 23.3 when my wife and I married in 1985.[11] The age at which women first give birth has increased steadily over the last several decades, and the proportion of first births to women aged 35 years and over increased nearly eight times from 1970 to 2006.[12] A lot has to do with standard social determinants of health: education, income level, and geography. Having a college education may be the biggest factor. Women with college degrees have children an average of seven years later than those without.[13]

Ultimately, putting on a wedding is an investment, not an expense – a commitment to a couple’s future together. At whatever age, and regardless of destination, whether a sacred or secular venue, the marriage ceremony should still be a solemn occasion and a sacred event, a union where two mystically become one: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. (Ephesians 5:31, NIV)”[14] For the first time, I am reading that verse from a father of the bride’s standpoint.

One of the most touching quotes from the movie has to be when Banks says, “I remember how her little hand used to fit inside mine.” As I walk my daughter down the aisle, her hand in mine, I will be a blubbering fool. Nonetheless, I will be a proud, honored, and grateful – albeit poorer – father of the bride. And whenever they decide to have children is up to them!

[1] https://youtu.be/jdAmVaQPgQQ

[2] https://drsidroberts.substack.com/p/happily-ever-after-21-10-09

[3] https://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1985/07/22/66175/index.htm

[4] https://fortune.com/2022/04/08/how-much-does-wedding-cost-inflation-2022/

[5] https://www.theknot.com/content/average-wedding-cost

[6] https://clip.cafe/father-of-the-bride-1991/were-going-color-coordinate-with-the-swans/

[7] https://research.lifeway.com/2018/05/31/why-no-one-may-be-getting-married-at-your-church-this-summer/#:~:text=Religious%20institutions%20like%20churches%20hosted,weddings%20were%20at%20religious%20institutions.

[8] https://www.theknotww.com/press-releases/the-knot-2017-real-weddings-study-wedding-spend/

[9] http://grouptravel.org/destination-wedding/surprising-destination-wedding-statistics-and-how-they-affect-you/

[10] https://www.zola.com/expert-advice/what-weddings-really-cost

[11] https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/families/marital.html

[12] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db21.htm#:~:text=specific%20average%20age-,Are%20first%2Dtime%20mothers%20older%3F,1990)%20(Figure%201).